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subject = 1st year Law Univ. level

title = Euthanasia: A question of ethics

papers = Please put your paper here.

Euthanasia is one of the most acute and uncomfortable contemporary problems in

medical ethics. Is Euthanasia Ethical? The case for euthanasia rests on one main

fundamental moral principle: mercy.

It is not a new issue; euthanasia has been discussed-and practised-in both Eastern

and Western cultures from the earliest historical times to the present. But because of

medicine's new technological capacities to extend life, the problem is much more p

Euthanasia is a way of granting mercy-both by direct killing and by letting the person

die. This principle of mercy establishes two component duties:

1. the duty not to cause further pain or suffering; and

2. the duty to act to end pain or suffering already occurring.

Under the first of these, for a physician or other caregiver to extend mercy to a

suffering patient may mean to refrain from procedures that cause further

suffering-provided, of course, that the treatment offers the patient no overriding

benefits. The ph s performed even though a patient's survival is highly unlikely;

although patients in arrest are unconscious at the time of resuscitation, it can be a

brutal procedure, and if the patient regains consciousness, its aftermath can involve

considerable pain. In many such cases, the patient will die whether or not the

treatments are performed. In some cases, however, the principle of mercy may also

demand withholding treatment that could extend the patient's life if the treatment is

itself painful or discomf The principle of mercy may also demand letting die in a still

stronger sense. Under its second component, the principle asserts a duty to act to end

suffering that is already occurring. Medicine already honours this duty through its

various techniques Ending the pain, though with it the life, may be accomplished

through what is usually called "passive euthanasia", withholding or withdrawing

treatment that could prolong life. In the most indirect of these cases, the patient is

simply not given treatme The second component of the mercy principle may also

demand the easing of pain by means more direct than mere allowing to die; it may

require killing. This usually is called "active euthanasia. In passive euthanasia,

treatment is withheld that could su cesses and waits for eventual death to ensue;

rather. it is one that brings the pain- and the patient's life- to an end now. If there are

also grounds on which it is merciful not to prolong life, then there are grounds on

which it is merciful to terminat Pain is a thing of the medical past, and euthanasia is

no longer necessary, though it may have been, to relieve pain. Given modern medical

technology and recent remarkable advances in pain management, the sufferings of

the morally wounded and dying can It is flatly incorrect to say that all pain, including

pain in terminal illness, is or can be controlled. Some people still die in unspeakable

agony. With superlative care, many kinds of pain can indeed be reduced in many

patients, and adequate control ncy may mean an agonizing final few hours. Even a

patient receiving the most advanced and sympathetic medical attention may still

experience episodes of pain, perhaps altering with consciousness, as his or her

condition deteriorates and the physician att In all of these cases, of course, the patient

can be sedated into unconsciousness; this does indeed end the pain. But in respect

of the patient's experience, this is tantamount to causing death: the patient has no

further conscious experience and thus